Songs of the Dying Earth

owl-killer had assured him, would be comprehended by any reputable messaging company. Caulk located a courier at the inn, and then waited in the same upstairs chamber in which he had met Mott. It brought back memories, none of them pleasant. And yet, it had led to changes that were intriguing…

There was a knock on the door; Caulk opened it, to find an eager Mott outside.

“Well, did you find my owl-witch, Caulk?”

“I did.”

“Where is it?”

“Within.”

Mott took care to keep out of immediate dagger thrust, Caulk observed, but that hardly mattered. He fingered the bite on his wrist. The owl-killer glanced impatiently around the chamber. “It looks empty. I see no pelt, no hangings. Where is my owl-witch?”

“Here,” Caulk said and felt the wrench as bone turned, skin turned, soul turned. He swept up on broad black wings to the height of the chamber, then down, as Mott’s pale eyes widened for the last time.

Some while later, Caulk hoicked up a pellet and spat it onto what was left of Mott’s body. Then he soared up and out of the chamber, over the roofs of Azenomei, heading first down the Xzan and then the Scaum towards the open sea. He’d told the girls that there would be a recently empty turret — much nicer than the boulders of Llantow, with plenty of room and a nice view. It would, he thought as he flew, prove eminently suitable for a new home.

Afterword:

I was eleven years old. It was the mid 1970s and I lived in a small, bucolic city in the West of England. I longed to travel to the Gobi desert, to Siberia, to South America, but options for doing so were…limited. So I voyaged through books instead, and by the time I was eleven, I was already widely travelled — to Narnia, Prydain, Green Knowe, Prince Edward Island. Then one day my mother grew bored with the Gothic novels she’d been reading and brought back something different from the local library — a novel called City of the Chasch. I read it, very quickly. Then I read it again. After that, we went back to the library and returned, over time, with Planet of Adventure and the Demon Princes books, and with The Dying Earth.

Since then I have been to the Gobi, and to Siberia. I’ve never taken a spacecraft or a time-machine to Tschai, or the Dying Earth, but I know they’re real places — I’ve been there, too, after all. And when I was eleven, I started writing the novel that would, years later, become Ghost Sister. I was nominated for the Philip K Dick Award, some years ago in Seattle, for that book. And, during the convention, I interviewed Jack Vance. I told him it was all his fault. ‘Godammit,’ he growled. ‘You gotta be so careful with stuff like that.’

— Liz Williams

Mike Resnick INESCAPABLE

Sometimes you’re better off if your heart’s desire is out of reach…

Mike Resnick is one of the bestselling authors in science fiction, and one of the most prolific. His many novels include Santiago, The Dark Lady, Stalking The Unicorn, Birthright: The Book of Man, Paradise, Ivory, Soothsayer, Oracle, Lucifer Jones, Purgatory, Inferno, A Miracle of Rare Design, The Widowmaker, The Soul Eater, and A Hunger in the Soul. His award-winning short fiction has been gathered in the collections Will the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Turn Off the Sun? An Alien Land, Kirinyaga, New Dreams for Old, and Hunting the Snark and Other Short Novels. In the last decade or so, he has become almost as prolific as an anthologist, producing, as editor, Inside the Funhouse: 17 SF stories about SF, Whatdunits, More Whatdunits, and Shaggy B.E.M Stories, a long string of anthologies co-edited with Martin H. Greenberg— Alternate Presidents, Alternate Kennedys, Alternate Warriors, Aladdin: Master of the Lamp, Dinosaur Fantastic, By Any Other Fame, Alternate Outlaws, and Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, among others — as well as two anthologies co-edited with Gardner Dozois. He won the Hugo Award in 1989 for “Kirinyaga,” the story that follows. He won another Hugo Award in 1991 for another story in the Kirinyaga series, “The Manumouki,” plus the Hugo and Nebula in 1995 for his novella “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge”, the 1998 Hugo for “The 43 Antanean Dynasties”, and the 2005 Hugo for “Travels With My Cats”. His most recent books include the novel The Return of Santiago, and the anthologies Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian (edited with Janis Ian), and New Voices in Science Fiction. His most recent books are the collection The Other Teddy Roosevelts, the novels Starship: Mercenary, Starship: Rebel, and Stalking the Vampire, and a “Kirinyaga” related novella, Kilimanjaro: a Fable of Utopia. He lives with his wife, Carol, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

His name was Pelmundo, and he was the son of Riloh, Chief Curator of the Great Archive in the distant city of Zhule. Like all fathers, Riloh wanted a son who followed in his footsteps, but like many sons, Pelmundo was determined to make his own way in the world.

He had been a soldier, and then a mercenary, and finally he became a Watchman of the city of Maloth, which nestled alongside the River Scaum. He wore a shining silver medallion, his pride and joy, full five inches across, as a token of his office, and a plain sword that had tasted blood more than once rested in a well-worn scabbard at his side. His leather garments bore the mark of not only his station, but the horned bat that showed him to be favored by the city’s true protector, Umbassario of the Glowing Eyes. It was Pelmundo’s job to keep the streets safe from drunks and rowdies, and the homes safe from thieves. The greater dangers, the otherworldly and netherworldly, were the province of Umbassario.

It was a symbiotic relationship, reflected Pelmundo; Umbassario protected the town against all other magicks, and in turn the town turned a blind eye toward his own.

But it was not Umbassario and his creatures that dominated Pelmundo’s thoughts. No, it was a golden creature that played havoc with his mind and his dreams. Her name was Lith, perfect in form and movement, golden of skin and hair, a youthful witch, still in her teens, but already with a woman’s body and a woman’s power to enchant even without magic.

Pelmundo was totally captivated by the young golden witch. She had left her village and never spoke of her parents, dividing her time between her home in a hollow tree in the Old Forest, and, when she had business in the city, Laja’s House of Golden Flowers, and of all the golden flowers who plied their ancient trade there, her blossoms were the sweetest.

Time and again, Pelmundo would approach her, awed and tongue-tied by her sensuous beauty, but determined to plead his cause. Time and again, she would laugh in amusement.

“You are but a Watchman,” she would say. “What can you possibly offer in exchange for my love?”

He would speak of honor, and she would speak of trinkets. He would promise love, and she would snicker and point out that the poorest jewel lasted longer than the greatest love. He would beg just to be with her, and the golden witch would vanish, only the echo of her amused laughter lingering in the empty air.

Pelmundo sought out Umbassario, who lived in a snake-filled cave high in the rocky outcroppings beyond Maloth. It was lit by black candles, and the light flickered off a thousand bats that slept their days away hanging upside down between the stalagmites before being sent off on their unholy errands.

“I have come to—” he began.

“I know why you have come, Watchman,” replied the mage. “Am I not Umbassario of the Glowing Eyes?”